Is Travel Running Away From Life?

Is Travel Running Away From Life?

We constantly hear that we are visiting new countries, living a life of digital nomads and making money online to avoid commitments. That we are running away from real life. What’s the truth? Are we running away or running towards life?

Stop Judging

Can life be unreal?

I mean, is it even possible to live unreal life? I really hate any kind of pigeonholing. Sorting people on beautiful and ugly, skinny and fat, clever and stupid, those who live a real life and those who run away from something. For us, it’s actually quite scary. We are Poles and the history of our country showed that judging people and segregating them on better and worse may be the beginning of something terrible. I am talking about WWII. Every war, every conflict, every fight begins with this one small thing. Less than a hundred years ago Nazis thought they were the real people and Jews were not human beings at all. White people were kidnapping black people and forced them to be their slaves. It’s all because they thought they were better than them. This is happening in history over and over again and we can’t understand why people judge others so easily.

Of course, slavery or holocaust can’t be compared to traveling but my point is to show that we shouldn’t judge others. If we all mind our own business, the world would be a better place.

So NO, travel is not running away from anything. Every life is real as long as you are breathing. No matter what you do or where you are.

Check out this post to read more about stereotypes and why it’s always good to travel the world.

Life Should Not Be Boring

What is real life?

We are living in a society where there are many unofficial rules to follow. You have to finish college, find a decent job, get married, have kids, buy a house and a car. If you don’t have (or if you don’t want to have) one of these, you are considered as someone weird. There must be something wrong with you, you are not normal.

We are both very tolerant, we believe that everybody has the right to live the life they want.

For us, traveling is real life and sitting at home, living other people’s life (by watching TV, movies, etc.) is running away.

For us, real life is when you do what you love, no matter what it is. This is our subjective opinion and we try not to judge people but accept them. In this post, I am trying to answer the question: Is travel running away from life?

We Were All Nomadic Once

Is staying in one place normal?

Nowadays, people have houses, jobs and everything they need in one place. It wasn’t like that in the past.

People were changing the place of living constantly. Ancient humans were living only in spots where they have enough food to eat and water to drink.

If there was something missing, they were easily moving to another place. It’s perfectly natural to explore new territories. And this is what travelers do nowadays- they are looking for new and interesting territories.

Of course, their motivation is not to find food or water, and they are moving faster than primitive people. But what I am trying to say is that moving is something native. Something that we all have since the beginning of mankind. This is who we are, we are people and we were born to explore, achieve and discover.

What do you think about it? Is travel running away from life or not? Share your thoughts in comments!

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6 COMMENTS

I actually did travel for 7 entire months to avoid a very hard phase in my life, however I think it was more therapy than running away. It was the best thing I have ever done and gave me a new perspective on my life and made me change my career, my friendship groups and appreciate my home and family much much more. So no, I don’t think travel is escapism from real life. It think it broadens your horizons immensely and makes you appreciate the little things in life. 🙂

Great article! The points you make are so true, especially about how the majority of people living “normal” lives are basically unhappy with their current position in life and dreaming of something better. I’m currently only 2 months into my adventures of exploring asia and my views of life and the world have expanded more than I ever thought! I always wanted to travel ever since I was 6 or 7, so traveling has always seemed like a natural thing for me, so I feel like I’m fulfilling my lifes dream, which I would say is the exact opposite of running away from life.

I like they way you explained it. For me, I think that living in one place is a big waste of time; I mean the world is very big with billions of things to discover and experience. The only thing that is tying me up from seeing the world is th fact that I’m stuck in a job that I don’t really like. If only there was a way to be released from this nightmare. I love your article though, keep on the good work.